According to the Beatles, all you need is love. Released to a world television audience of 400 million people in 1967, John Lennon hoped this song would start a revolution. Well, it didn’t.

And, if you listen to songs today, it’s clear that we don’t find that sort of love compelling anymore. What’s taken its place is a much darker picture of love – hopeless and painful.

Lady Antebellum’s smash hit Need You Now pictures a lost couple who settles for a drunk encounter because they would “rather hurt than feel nothing at all.” Eminem’s #1 duet with Rihanna, I Love the Way You Lie, pictures love full of anger, and the conclusion is, “I love the way it hurts.”

Violence and love are nothing new in entertainment. What is new is the fatalism. The idea is that you can’t escape- this is what love brings.